Pope Francis: Fake News Caused The Original Sin

Fake news led to Adam and Eve’s original sin, Pope Francis said Wednesday. Disinformation and “manipulative use of social networks” can have “dire consequences” and the world must embark on a “profound and careful process of discernment,” he added in a speech marking World Communications Day.

Fake news — a term popularized by President Donald Trump — is “a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes, and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred,” Francis said. There is no such thing as harmless disinformation, he said.

“We need to unmask what could be called the ‘snake-tactics’ used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike at any time and place,” he said. “This was the strategy employed by the ‘crafty serpent’ in the Book of Genesis, who, at the dawn of humanity, created the first fake news which began the tragic history of human sin.”